My Weekend Musings (5th Edition)

It’s been a while since my last weekend musings post, the 4th edition was all the way back in April. So, I thought it would be the prefect time for another weekend musings post! Following are some of the big things going on in my world…

• PPC Ian is now a registered trademark of my company, IJL Productions LLC. I’m thrilled, it’s the first trademark that I own and represents my goal of continuing to go really big with PPC Ian! I truly appreciate each and every person who takes the time to read my blog, thanks so much.
• Nicole and I had dinner with a great friend tonight who we had not seen for a year! Time passes by so fast, especially in the world of online marketing. Make sure to take time for the important people in your life. It’s all about friends and family.
• This weekend, I’m working most of the weekend. I have a big presentation on Monday and want to make sure it’s perfect. I worked half of the weekend last weekend too. It’s all about doing your best and going above and beyond in your online marketing career. Next weekend will be my time to take some time off!
• I own a portfolio of websites and recently did some important housekeeping items that have improved user experience and also organic traffic. A few weeks ago, I spent the entire weekend auditing each site and doing the following…
  1. I removed all non-converting affiliate links. Even though the links were marked as “nofollow”, I saw no reason to keep such links if the were not driving sales.
  2. I made sure all links worked. I corrected or removed broken links. I found lots of them. I also made sure to check the websites I linked to. Some of them were gone and were simply parked pages. I made sure to remove such links, as they are no longer of value to the user.
  3. I updated all copyright notices to say “Copyright XYZ Date – 2012”. Many of them had only been updated through 2011 or in some cases 2010. The combination of these efforts seems to be helping quite a bit. My traffic is steadily increasing and also my AdSense earnings are up about 25% over the last few weeks.
• It’s important to simplify your life and focus on those things that are truly important. This type of framework can help both at work and at home, it’s a big productivity and peace of mind booster. Recently, I dropped a lot of domains. I’m even dropping domains that have built websites, if they are not earning good money each year. Why keep domains/websites that don’t pay for themselves (and that I have no intent/ability to sell for a profit)? Such domains/websites are liabilities, not assets. This move has helped clear my mindshare while also boosting profits. It’s just like paid search optimization, you need to invest in your winners and cut your losers.
• PPC tip of the week: Make sure to ask your search engine reps about beta tests. Beta tests are a great way to stay ahead of the curve and embrace new technologies before anyone else. Moreover, betas often offer a discounted (or even free) way to test features that may later cost money.

Image of Time For Me © iStockPhoto – donskarpo